I suppose one of the good things about writing a blog is that you can have a proper grouse about something, and then you never have to grouse about it again because there it is in all its glory on the web. And you can use it as a place to work out your unpleasant fantasies of retribution. All done, sorted. I want to grouse about the AA, not because of lousy service or anything, but because of what they’ve done to “You’ve Got a Friend” in their current advertising campaign. I understand the theory: you have 30 seconds, or actually 28-29 because the whole thing has to fade to black, in which to get your message across, therefore the music has to be exactly that length. For many years I’ve watched my husband Pete edit his own tunes into 30- or 20-second versions, so I know how judicious trimming goes on. But what the music director has done on the AA ad is just irritating beyond belief, trimming crotchets (that’s quarter-notes to you) here, there and everywhere on the long notes and, well, just upsetting things. I suppose 95 percent of people don’t notice, 4.99 percent of people don’t mind or think it’s quite clever really, but I’m one of those that it maddens. It’s not that I think the song is sacred: I don’t. It’s just that because it is part of my history (we all liked James Taylor when we were callow youths busking in the Hyde Park underpasses because his songs paid well) and when I hear it I have expectations, and those are thwarted every time the wretched ad comes on. And then because I’m a saddo musicologist it bugs me until I work out how it’s done, and instead of doing Important Things I’m sat there on the sofa tapping my leg and humming to work out where the 3/4 bars are. The nightmare scenario is next time I’m up in town, I’ll go into an underpass and there will be a busker, doing it like it’s on the telly, at which point I will lose the will to live. So then I’ll have to buy Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon from iTunes and have it handy to prove to the busker that the telly sometimes lies, forcing him to listen all the way through before I beat him to a pulp and break his guitar. Grr. OK – had my moan, and it’s well and truly blogged. The buskers of London can sleep easy again.